


By the Skin of Her Teeth

by feckyeswriting (firelord65)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, shortfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/pseuds/feckyeswriting
Summary: It's a simple job. Get in. Get out. Get gone before the Order knows she's been there.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Star Wars Multishippers





	By the Skin of Her Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago as a pinch hit for an exchange. It didn't end up being needed and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I'm posting it now because why not?

Minutes ticked by on Rey's chrono. It was taking too long. Transport to the comms station had been clocked at sixteen minutes. Rey was approaching eighteen. The nagging sensation of _wrongness_ thrummed with every check of the chrono. Eighteen point three five.

Rey didn't wait for the speeder to decelerate all the way, jumping and rolling from the craft to absorb the shock along her back rather than her side. Her auto-pilot would finish the decel. She had two point six eight minutes to make up.

A few wires cut loose from a security panel on the maintenance entrance granted her access to the comms building. Her chrono buzzed softly to let her know it had just hit twenty minutes. Late, late, late.

Her target was a server in the sub-basement. There was no direct route there, naturally, unless one counted the defunct lift shaft. Rey licked her lips and hoped that Poe's contact on Sarkhai was correct about its location. She was relying on the shortcut to keep her time inside under five minutes.

The shaft was there, just as dusty and unused as promised. Rey didn't bother clipping her rig onto the main cable. Her instincts had only improved from her two decades of scampering around Star Destroyers; free climbing down was quicker and didn't require the effort of monitoring her slack line.

The sub basement was dark when she pried the doors open. Her chrono glowed ominously red, the only light on the entire floor coming from the ticking numbers on her wrist. The flickering light ground on her nerves, more so as she recognized the familiar sensation of a darker Force user nearby. The Order was already on the way and they weren't messing around.

The server was there, its case surreptitiously opened by a member of the Resistance network stationed here. They weren't able to get the data out personally - all station workers were searched upon entering and exiting the building - which was where Rey came in. They'd coordinated the strike over a series of weeks, deciding to risk the brief window of time when a speeder could park by the maintenance door without detection.

Rey snatched the data drive and slammed the case shut. There wasn't enough time to wipe her prints off. That would have to be their agent's job.

She darted back into the hall, drive in hand. It didn't take someone gifted with the Force to realize something was wrong. The lights were on. Boots thundered from not-too-far away. "Find the agent and raze the place to the ground." The augmented voice was unmistakable. Rey had long since memorized the sound of it.

She turned away from the stomping of boots, intent on her escape route. Up the shaft, out the door, onto the speeder. Once she was out she didn't have to worry about staying unnoticed; she had removed the speed inhibitor on the craft in case of this exact situation.

Pulling the lift doors closed behind her was harder now that her fingers were slick with sweat. Rey balanced precariously on the lip, a single handhold all that kept her from falling to certain death. The Jedi were good, but she doubted the Force would protect her from gravity.

A pause, then.

"Sir, we've located all six workers." She could hear the troopers now. They had to be close by, sweeping the halls to locate her. "The drive is missing as well."

Rey switched hands gingerly so she could dry them both. Chalk, that's what she'd forgotten. Kylo Ren's voice was mere inches away. "None of the men have it?" he pressed. Rey grinned. His quarry was just on the other side of a plate of durasteel and he would never know it. "No sir."

"Kill them all regardless." Rey's stomach lurched. That hadn't been in the plan. The plan was get in, get out, go home. Rey snarled and reached reflexively for her saber. Fingertips grazed open air; her weapon of choice was safely stowed back on her cloaked fighter, thirty feet above her and several kliks away.

Her chrono buzzed again on her wrist. Out of time. She was supposed to be in and out by now. The satellites would be back overhead within the next five. Her escape route out would be exposed then.

Foiled, Rey began climbing as fast as she could manage with her now-trembling hands. Any minute now and she would hear blaster bolts. Self-preservation fought with selflessness as Rey thought of all the ways she could rescue the workers. Nothing was feasible without her saber, though, and Rey only felt despair.

She didn't bother to close the lift doors behind her when she got back to the main floor, scampering to the exit. "That one! She has the drive!"

Her luck had run out. Blaster fire pinned her in the hallway, a scant dozen meters from her speeder. Durasteel scorched above her head as the trooper laid down suppressing fire. Rey closed her eyes and concentrated. Without her saber she couldn't deflect the bolts themselves but she might be able to dodge them with a bit of help.

The Force gathered around her, pushing Rey to run, dart, fly across the dangerous hall. A bolt skimmed her elbow. The pain was jarring but she'd live. Rey ran at a normal pace to the door and slammed on the switch to open it. The panel refused to react. She was trapped.

Her mini kit was in her hands, cutting the panel open to get at the inner workings. "Don't bother, scavenger," Kylo Ren mocked from the end of the hall.

Rey threw a furtive glance over her shoulder. Sure enough the Knight of Ren stood there, regalia as dark as endless space.

"I guess I don't need to worry about a Resistance rat among the ranks," he mocked. "It seems this was all the work of one very small, determined mouse."

Her fingers still worked at the panel, stripping wires to cross and re-route. "That may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Rey called back. "Please, tell me more about how unthreatening I am."

Kylo's helmet twitched. A laugh? He held up a hand and the troopers around him stood down their weapons obediently. He was arrogant enough to think that he alone could contain her.

"Belay the kill order," Kylo said. Rey blinked. Mercy was never shown by the First Order, especially not when trying to cover up their failings. Even if Rey didn't make it out alive, word would spread that someone had successfully infiltrated the station _without_ help. An unacceptable weakness, no?

Rey didn't have time to consider the implications further. The door hissed as her rewiring overruled the main circuitry. Kylo had underestimated her. Rey savored how he surged forward, utterly surprised, trying to snatch at her. He was too far away and she was long gone, her speeder blowing the comms station to a spec on the horizon. Eyes closed against the rush of air, Rey savored the mental image. He'd never catch her.


End file.
